


Contagion

by AveryScott



Category: Carmilla - Fandom
Genre: Doctor/Patient, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-18 06:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7303054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AveryScott/pseuds/AveryScott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a time when supernatural beings live openly, an emerging pandemic threatens to render them extinct. After discovering that the key to a cure lies within human-kind, Silas Corp have been abducting humans with abnormal genetic code for testing. 'Recruited' by Silas Corp, Laura begins to unlock mysteries to the formula and provide hope for the supernatural community and Carmilla, but at what cost?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Awake

The acrid scent of sterilization was so pungent that it left a sharp, sour coating on her tongue and prickled the inside of her nostrils. So overt and obtrusive that she tried to reach a hand sluggishly up to tug at the tubing draped over her face, only to get tugged back by the cannula in the back of her hand. She took note of the steady drip of an IV bag to her right, off beat with the heart rate monitor but hitting every second flicker of electricity in the faulty ceiling light above, and the hearty, muffled chirps of birds outside her window. Trying to move her head to shift what felt like an anchor atop it, she only achieved a rustling of the cheap polyester beneath her. Laura tried vainly to remember how she had gotten here and why her eyelids felt too weighted to lift. Straining, flashes of dark hair and the sickening crunch and grind of metal were distinguishable in hazy bursts as the anchor sank further into her skull. She tried again to open her eyes.

 “-now can you assure me that it’s being taken care of?” A refined accent suddenly cut through the symphony of medical equipment and darkness. Just as quickly as it arrived, it was beside her. A pop she recognised as a needle puncturing a foil topped vial, just like the morphine her father had been prescribed the hours after he woke from his heart valve repair surgery the year prior, and then she felt a chill spread through her just as she imagined being buried in ice cold concrete would feel like.

 "Well if you’re wanting to point fingers here, you know as well as I that it’s Research and Recruitment's job to determine any viable next of kin to the potential participant, not mine, and it’s your responsibility as Department Head to ensure that that box is checked before processing her. How about instead of asking how I know and grabbing a shovel to dig yourself out, you start working out how you let this slip through?” 

Participant. Viable next of kin. Recruitment...Whatever the woman had injected into Laura’s IV feed began to heat considerably as panic set in. Racing through her organs rapidly, it set her chest on fire and the anchor sank even further. She clenched her fists to beat against the bed and opened her mouth to scream in agony and fear. She was screaming, wasn’t she?

The woman’s tone narrowed and sharpened into a feline-like hiss.

 “I will _not_ be taking the heat for this, Kirsch. This was a courtesy call to let you know that your fuck up is one slip of the tongue away from common knowledge. Fix it by _whatever means necessary_. You should know by now that the Dean won’t give you a courtesy call; she prefers public _execution_.” The harsh clack of heels move around the bed to her left and closer to Laura. The waft of perfume does little to disguise the scent of decay rolling off of her in waves and it is only sheer terror that kept her from gagging and revealing her consciousness. She then debated for a moment whether she physically could and her curiosity cursed whatever was coursing through her veins that stopped her from looking up at her captor.

Captor? Doctor? She presumed that this was a hospital, but what hospitals have Research and Recruitment for patients? She hadn’t been approached by anyone, she surely would remember that even if she couldn’t remember why she was here, and would never have agreed to...a drug trial? An experiment? The woman sighed and Laura tried to piece together an image of her. So far she had a polished accent, a professional outfit and the sickly scent of death about her. With a guess, a 40 or 50-something mortician in a private hospital. But then why would a Mortician be seeing her...was she dead? Oh god...her father couldn’t afford getting a root canal, let alone private healthcare! Another sigh and the rhythmic scrawl of pen on paper paused as she felt a cold touch of fingers press hard against her arm for a moment before releasing and repeating several times in different locations, broken up with notes jotted onto her page. With a slam, whatever the doctor was holding slapped heavily down onto a surface and the clatter of a pen followed before silence.

Cool fingers returned, but stroked curiously from her left temple to follow the curvature of her jaw bone and rest below her chin. “What a waste, Laura. If your father hadn’t kicked up a fuss, I would have called this a very successful day....he just had to care...didn’t he...” The woman tucked a few loose tendrils of soft, ochre hair behind her ear. “Don't you worry, he’ll be taken care of. You’ve got an important job to do for us, cupcake. Can’t have anyone messing that up now, can we? No, no, no.” Suddenly, the voice lay at her ear, thick and heady and definitely not a 50 year old Mortician. “I know you’re awake, sweetie, I can hear your thoughts whirring. Don’t you worry though, we’ll have a _proper_ introduction tomorrow.”

The soft tickle of hot breath settled as her heels echoed her steps to the door and it slipped shut behind her. Laura felt her heart staccato in her chest but her monitor and whatever had been injected gave nothing away.

Research and Recruitment.

Research and _Recruitment_.

For what? What did it mean? Who was the Dean? Or Kirsch? Or the woman?

The door creaked and clicked shut once more and more papers rustled.

 “Alright, Perry, 5 sets of 10ml from this one; send 3 down to the labs for processing and two to my office. Dr Karnstein wanted a rush on this one to be done personally, so I want you to stay with the samples at all times in the labs, and I’ll do the two myself.”

 “But all the others-”

 “I know, Per, but Carm says there’s something special about this one.”

The needle gave a sharp prick, and she felt the blood begin to trickle out.

* * *

 The soft landing of dry, amber leaves falling to undergrowth was deafening. With a gust of wind, they collect; picking up and twisting, dancing and dipping as the lake ripples. Glass crunches hollowly under foot and the wind carries shards across the asphalt. The sun catches them and send dappled light all around. A hand reaches out for a slippery, desperate grasp as sobs wrench themselves from her body. They sound muted as the sirens blare from a distant whisper to a pressing cry. With a grunt and a groan of bending metal, they pull a body carefully onto a stretcher and two EMTs move frantically. Laura watches one sprint back to the ambulance and return to place pads onto the chest as the other tears open the shirt. Their hands raise, the body bucks, the hands pump at the chest, the hands raise, the body bucks, the hands pump at the chest. The world goes black. The sirens still reverberate.

* * *

 

 Laura’s eyes flashed open to stark incandescent lighting, fluttering at the sudden shock of brightness, and a gasp tore from her throat, hands clutching the sheets. She threw her head forward from the pillow, searching frantically for chaos and pooling blood; the room was a clinical white with light, speckled, grey linoleum flooring, a pale white veneered cabinet next to a navy blue soft seat and a small oak table with editions of _Knitting Monthly_ and _Popular Patchwork_. The light above flickered. Darkness had fallen outside, but was beginning to ebb to sunrise and Laura struggles to guess the time. There was no clock in the room, and the monitor beside gave many numbers, but none decipherable to her. She watched her wriggle her fingers, then her toes, with a relieved sigh. Every movement felt like slow motion, but it was movement nonetheless. There was nothing around for a reflection, so she would have to wait for a nurse to escort her to the bathroom to...she leaned out of the bed slightly and lifted the edge of the blanket to find a bag hanging. No bathroom for a mirror then. She felt like someone had taken a copy of War and Peace and bludgeoned her with it before tearing the pages and stuffing them into her head, and bet that she looked like it too. Laura took another look around the room to try and work out, somehow, where she was being held, but whoever had set this room up knew what they were doing and how to stay anonymous. She resigned to laying her head back once more and hoping that the pages would fall out of her head and she could think clearly. So that she could think of an escape plan.

From what the doctor had said before her sleep, she concluded that this went beyond a hospital to captivity. But what was all of her blood for? What were they testing for? She tried to think over her last articles for any sort of connection to a medical practitioner seeking revenge for an exposé, but doubted that her ‘hard hitting journalism' on the new Dunkin' Donuts off of the I-95 would have led to a kidnapping situation. They’d even given her a free dozen of glazed jellys. She could go for one of those.

As if on call, the door swung open as someone backed into the room trailing a cart behind. Her red hair was pulled casually up and her miserable slate coloured scrubs did little to dim the grin splitting her face as the sun, peeking over the trees outside, cast the room in a rosy hue.

 "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. The prince finally cut through the brambles I take it?”

Laura could help but think back to the voice pressing against her ear and the soft fingertips trailing down her cheek, hoping again that her original assessment of an old, high class mortician was incorrect and praying that she wasn’t actually a captor, and just a physician.

 “I-y-...” Laura’s voice clawed it’s way out of her throat in bursts of noise and she stopped with a blush. “Wa-...wa-...”

 “Ah, I got you there.” The nurse turned, grabbed a cup and straw and perched on the edge of the bed, pressing a button to fold half of the bed and put Laura in a sitting position. “Don’t worry about holding, just sip. You’ll be a little groggy and sluggish for a while yet. There we go, now how about we try that introduction again, huh?”

_“Don’t you worry though, we’ll have a proper introduction tomorrow.”_ Laura gulped and pushed the memory away.

 “Did they take out your tongue in that surgery as well as stitch your head up? And the I was assisting in an a cholecystectomy. Tongue removal would've been far more interesting than a gall bladder.” Her head tilted slightly and Laura noted that even seated, the woman still towered but held a soft gaze.

 “I’m Laura, and I...I don’t really know why I’m here to be honest...or where here is...or who you are...”

Laura’s confusion and fear failed to shift her warm smile and she appreciated that.

 “Well, Laura, according to your chart you got into a little fender bender in the city and despite being determined to let go, somehow Dr Karnstein pulled you back to the land of the living. You were a fighter in there.”

The city. In the city. No, there were trees and leaves and a lake and the road had seemed to stretch to the horizon. The city?

 “Are you...sure? I don’t really remember much, but I don’t think-”

She stood up abruptly and went to the cart. “That'll happen. Memories will get a bit jumbled for a while. Things will settle though, just try not to push yourself to remember too hard.” A tray with covered plates was set on a rolling table in front of her. “You could pull a muscle, trust me, I’m qualified.” She added with a wink. “You’re in the private wing Saint Francis', safe and sound.”

 “I can’t-” Her gaze dropped low in mild embarrassment. “I can’t afford private healthcare...I think I should probably move to a public wing before I rack up more of a cost. I’d at least like to keep my laptop if I have to sell all of my possessions to cover everything already.” She pushed away the rolling table and went to slowly shove the blanket down her legs and try to reach for the IV stand. “You direct, I’ll walk, I can’t- I can’t stay here-”

 “Whoa there, calm down now Laura.”

 “No, I-“

 “I get that, it’s just that it’s been covered.”

Laura froze, one foot on the floor, brow wrinkling in confusion.

 “I don’t-...what do you mean ‘covered'?”

The nurse walked around the bed and bent to wrap two hands around Laura’s escaped leg and place it back in the bed, tucking her in.

 “We’re a private charity that selects or is handed cases from the hospital for those who can’t afford healthcare and are in dire need of assistance. You were in a pretty bad crash downtown and whilst the other drivers are covered by insurance, its says in your file that you don’t have any and that every visit you’ve had is paid in monthly instalments. Well, that debt is gone now, and you won’t have any for this."

 "...downtown?”

Laura stared at the covered dishes and slowly reached for a fork. There were leaves. There were definitely leaves.

 “Oh, and it’s Nurse Lawrence. Feel free to call for me whenever, you’re one of three under me today, so you’ll be doing me a favour.”

Kirsch. Dean. Perry. Dr Karnstein. Nurse Lawrence. She repeated them like a mantra, determined to not forget. Her brain wasn’t muddled, she knew it. She was sure. There were _leaves_. And now there were pancakes.

* * *

 

 After a very lethargic breakfast, Laura lay back with her eyes rested shut and her bed still raised. Her head still felt stuffy, but the orange juice had helped some and she wanted to clear her head a moment of hazy dreams, husky voices, and the aching gaps in her memory. She couldn’t even pin-point her last clear memory. Was she on her way to visit her Father? No, she had left...or was she on the way to the store to pick up his weekly groceries? The latter, definitely...or...

The creak signalled an entrance, and Laura peaked through one eye at her visitor to see the welcome sight of resplendent locks and grey scrubs. Nurse Lawrence stalled in the doorway and spun her head sharply at the call of her name and Laura strained to piece together the biting words directed at her.

 “-vital priority-...-rested for the ben-...-if I hear-...-report to-...- _rested_ not _pestered_ , are we cl-...”

 “ _Well_ , Dr Karnstein, I was actually going to collect her tray and lay out the file for you post-op later as your delinquent resident is AWOL yet again. Now if you’d like to give me context other than being vital priority then I could perhaps alter my methods, but until then I treat her like I do all of the other patients, and that includes collecting her tray. Is that acceptable, Doctor?”

Laura heard a single heeled step, and the woman’s voice became clearer. It was the same hiss that she had used on the phone, and Laura felt the same wave of fear along with something else.

 “Nurse Lawrence, the reason that Silas Corp hired you is because we saw it a shame to waste medical talent despite your dropping out of the residency programme and we graciously decided to forget your attempts to get myself kicked off of the same programme. You do not need context. If you wanted it, you should have made it past the first week. When I say that a patient needs rest and not to be frivolously pestered, you will respect that command. Now, are we clear, Summer Psycho?”

Her hand gripped tightly at the door handle and reluctantly pulled it to a close effectively cutting of Laura’s eavesdropping. She could see her through the window looking down, but the other figure was blocked by the door jam before she stormed past Lawrence with a flourish of a white jacket and dark hair.

 


	2. Answers

Laura had lost count of days. Nurse Lawrence had been the only visitor, and she had seen neither hide nor hair of the Dr Karnstein that had supposedly pieced her back together…or captured her…or recruited her…she still hadn’t worked that one out yet. The Nurse spoke little of the Doctor, and anything mentioned was laced with disdain and quickly pushed past, and so Laura lay, still, and waited. What for, she hadn’t worked that one out yet either, but it would happen. _Something_ would happen. She needed a clue…a lead…but the routine was strict and access limited. Lawrence came in at 8:30am with a tray for breakfast and a noting of the monitors, 10:00am came with a second noting, lunch at noon, pupil dilation and reaction testing at 2:30pm, dinner at 5:00pm, final tests at 7:30pm, and then intermittently through the night. Laura thankfully hadn’t woken for many of those due to the gracious provision of a sedative that quietened the persistent dull ache of the stitches in her scalp and allowed her to drift off. Day in, day out, all the same.

 “You still functioning in there, or have the pod people called a visit?”

Laura looked over from where she had been staring at a blemish on the stark wall.

 “Am I dead? Is this heaven? White everything, endlessly boring, not much noise other than the birds?”

The Nurse chuckled but the corner of her mouth twitched slightly in sympathy.

 “I know it’s been…difficult this past week, but you’ve been placed under a strict quarantine to protect you from potential bacterial infections to inhibit better healing. Karnstein’s orders.” Laura opened her mouth to protest. “I can see what I can do for a book or two other than knitting and quilting magazines, but unfortunately for the time being, I’m all the company you’ve got.” She pushed the overlaying table away, and perched on the edge of the bed.

 “But Nurse-”

 “-Danny. It’s Danny. I feel like we’ve seen enough of each other this week, and will in the weeks to come, to permit that”

The beeps of the machine filled the silence and Laura looked down at the scratchy blanket draped across her legs.

 “… _Danny_ …do you think I could ask Dr Karnstein if I could move yet? I mean, just in a chair about the halls. I think that I’m losing my last grip on sanity, and even if this is the end, then surely I should be allowed that?”

 “The _end_? How very morbid of you. And there was me thinking that spending 5 hours fixing that little head of yours would give you a vivacity for life.” A voice slick with a blend of confidence and arrogance came from the doorway. Danny span her head and stood from the bed to take the tray. “Nurse Lawrence, Mr Beauchamp in 106 needs a sponge bath and asked for you personally. I wouldn’t want to deny a sick man the small pleasures in life.”

Laura tried to peer around Danny’s tall frame, but she had shifted and moved towards the voice.

 “It would be my pleasure, Doctor. Anything for the patient.”

As Danny left, the Doctor turned to watch her go down the hall and Laura let her gaze rake down her back. Her hair fell in loose waves to her shoulder blades, a pitch black that stood boldly against the clinical room. Lithe frame, but a strength in her standing, and sharp black heels that matched the black skirt that peeked out from her white lab coat. A beige file was tucked beneath her right arm as they both crossed and when Danny finally entered 106, and Laura heard the door softly shut, she pulled it out and opened with a deep sigh. She stood there, flicking paper up and over the binding and examining notes with a frequent tut and shake of the head.

 “Well I’ll give you this, buttercup, Research actually did a good job with you.” She turned and Laura gulped as the voice sunk in. It had echoed around the empty room as she had been forced to either read on the benefits of stockinette stitches to seed or contemplate her captor. “ _You know as well as I that it’s Research and Recruitment's job to determine any viable next of kin to the potential participant, not mine…”_ It seemed that she was correct in altering her assumption of age and occupation, because this woman was clearly not a day over 30 and her shoes spoke of a far higher wage than that which sole purpose is to wipe off body matter.

 “I have questions.”

She was sure that that would have sounded a lot more demanding without the mild tremor in her voice.

 “I’m sure you do, and I have answers, but here’s the tricky situation; you have answers I need before I can provide with those that you want.” She slowly ambled the end of the bed and leaned over to brace her elbows on the rolling table. Her eyebrows were meticulous and arched as her head tilted slightly in curiosity. The light caught sharp cheekbones yet made her eyes seem like an abyss.

 “I don’t know what you’re…I don’t have answers; I don’t even know where I am.”

 “Yes you do, Nurse Lawrence told you that yesterday. You also now know who I work for, you know my name, you know my colleagues, and now I want to know something.” Her hands clasped together and her brows furrowed. “What’s your favourite book?”

Laura balked.

No mention of the drugs that she had been ingesting every day, no reason for keeping her here, and no explanation of why Silas Corp picked her.

 “I-” Laura fumbled for something. Anything. She loved books, so why couldn’t she conjure any author or series with those eyes burrowing into her. “Harry Potter?” Her tone lilted at the end in a question not for her favourite, but whether or not it would appease the woman before her that stared so intently without a shift in her body.

 “Figures.” She sighed, lifting the file again and flicking over 3 pages to the most recent annotations. “I’ll have Lawrence bring them in for you to browse. The crafting wasn’t a personal choice, but St Francis is used to the elderly, not the revolutionary.”

She scribbled her signature at the bottom of the page and tucked it back beneath her right arm and a slow, sly grin crept across her face. Laura fumbled over the word. Revolutionary.

 “Now, buttercup, there’s the matter of why you’re here. The five samples of your blood were ample to confirm R&R’s suspicions and Dr. LaFontaine will be in later to discuss the next stage of your participation in this programme. Please note whilst they explain that your participation is technically non-compulsory, but I wouldn’t chance testing that. The Dean wouldn’t be happy if we let such a fine specimen slip away from us.” Her fingers curled around her pen as the word _specimen_ slid off her tongue.

 “So I was right then. You _are_ my captor.”

 “No, not captor as such. I would go for…surveyor. Captor has such a negative connotation to it.”

 “Negative, because I’m being held against my will!” Laura threw her unattached hand in the air in frustration.

 “At what point did non-mandatory mean against your will? I would suggest that you comply, but here is no gun to your head and no chain on your wrist. You may leave if you want to but-”

 “ _Good_.” Laura grabbed the covers and flung them from her legs before moving them from the bed and placing her feet on cold linoleum for the first time. She reached a tentative hand to her IV stand and shakily stood. “Then I’m…I’m… _crap.”_ Her legs buckled beneath her and her eyes bunched shut, waiting to feel the hard floor collide with her bruised body and squeaked in anticipation. They opened when it never came. Arms looped around her, and she opened her eyes to a bare neck, rich perfume and a racing heartbeat.

 “What I was going to say was that you may leave, but I’d suggest that you at least get the two more weeks of bed rest before we move you to a physical rehabilitation facility.” The Doctor was still far too close for Laura to be angry about her captivity and she wriggled from her grip, placing a hand on the bed for stability before taking a seat.

 “I don’t understand…I’m not a captive, but I’m supposed to stay here. My expensive surgery was paid for by a mysterious charity that I’ve never heard of. My blood was taken for testing and apparently I’m a ‘fine specimen’ for something. I just don’t…”

Karnstein stayed close to her, arms stretch wide in case she decided to make another break for it, and her face shrouded in concern.

 “I think that you’re going to need a little more rest before we hit you with the programme, cupcake. You’ve got a big role to play-”

 “Yeah, you said that…”

The Doctor grinned again and her arms lowed to tuck her hands into her pockets.

 “I knew you were awake.” She stepped forward and placed a palm against Laura’s shoulder, gently guiding her back down to bed. “All in good time, Miss Hollis. All in good time.” The covers were lifted back over her bruised legs, and her stand wheeled back into place, the tubing untangled and laid out. “And as for the captor thing. I don’t think the captive can be defined as the captor, Laura.”

 

* * *

 

The books lay before in a neat stack. The first lay at the top, slightly dog eared with enthusiasm and love, and the bottom just as worn from repeated reading. Laura had felt sick all day as she tried to wrap her mind around the last week and ignore the stab of pain when the screech of tires reverberated in her skull. LaFontaine had done little to appease her worries with a long convoluted speech of medical terminology to which the other Doctor, Perry, had attempted to reduce down into a digestible summary.

 “Well, see, there’s a disease that affecting…certain people…and we think that the cure to this disease is in…well…the blood of certain people. You, actually. And I know, I know, that this is a lot to take in, but you…you could hold the answers to a lot of questions and maybe, even, the possibility of a vaccination for…certain people, and whilst you could go, you could also be a big part of history right now and if you did then we could get in a lot of trouble for letting you slip through our fingers when Susan, when LaFontaine, is so close to a break through and that could be catastrophic to not only people but our careers and, and, and-” LaFontaine had placed a hand on her arm and turned to Laura with a warm smile.

 “People keep saying that.” Laura whispered. “I’m an answer. I have a big role to play.”

The two of them surrounded her, one on each side in an effort to comfort but only suffocating her further.

 “Last week I was reporting on pseudo-news and looking after my dad and trying to keep my basil plant alive. Now, I have some mystery doctors telling me that I’m a cure? In what world does that even happen?”

A hand laid atop hers as tears began to well up.

 “This one, Laura. This is scary, but hidden in your genetic code is a vaccine that is going to help 48% of this country’s population and 53% of the world’s. That’s far better than reporting on minor stories in a dead-end reporting job and trying to maintain an herb garden.”

Laura sniffled and glanced at Perry. Those figures; she knew those figures. Everyone who watched the news in the past five years knew those figures and suddenly a light switched on.

 “They’re dying, aren’t they? The disease…it’s going to kill them. All of them.” Perry nodded and she continued, struggling with her desire to help and desire to run away and never look back. But as much as she wanted the latter, the could barely cope with the mere notion of millions of undead bodies on her hands, let alone the reality. “I need to know about Silas Corp. If I’m doing this, then you need to tell me or give me some form of phone or laptop so that I can do it myself.” Laura sat up further and shoved a pillow deep behind her to prop her up.

 “They’re deep, shady and well connected. The internet is a lost cause.” LaFontaine cleared her throat and ducked her head slightly. “After V-Day, Silas Corp went off the grid. They’d been a research facility for the government, but they announced bankruptcy and no-one heard or spoke of them again. Thing is, no-one lost their jobs, no-one reported on a multi-billion-dollar research conglomerate going under, and the economy didn’t take a hit. They went dark. Security went up big time, and those of us who worked there signed a non-disclosure and suddenly the amount of background checks went off the charts. We’re not even allowed to discuss what we’re working on with colleagues on different projects. Hell, I don’t even know if I have colleagues. We had an office building in a business estate outside of the city, but then everyone was dispersed to other facilities and we were given St Francis. The only contact we have is with R&R who send patients our way.”

They lean back for a moment to stare at the door with a narrowing gaze before turning back to Laura.

 “At first we were working on the basic physiology of supernatural beings and researching methods of concealing their more obvious physical traits to provide an easier transition to cohabitation but then…the first reports came in from R&R. One case became a dozen, a dozen became a hundred, and soon enough we had almost enough to declare a pandemic; an immunodeficiency so crippling that it took mere weeks for the patient to succumb. Until Carmilla. Dr Karnstein tried everything to find a cure for one of our patients here at St Francis and I thought that I had worked something out, but before we could use it on her, Carmilla fell ill too. We only had one viable sample, and we didn’t even know if that would work, so…”

 “So you had to choose. The Doctor who had been working on the project, or one of the people that you had sworn to find a cure for.”

They gulped and wrung their hands in their lap.

 “We didn’t have a choice. The Dean….is not someone to disobey, and so that was that. Carmilla was given the drug, the patient died three days later, and Carmilla somehow survived.”

 “So that’s it then.” Laura exclaimed. “There’s a cure. You found it, you have the formula, so why am I here?”

 Perry shifted in her seat on the bed.

 “Well, LaF didn’t quite…work it out entirely. Dr Karnstein still has the virus, but the sample managed to slow it down. To what extent, we don’t know, but we’re working on borrowed time right now. That’s where you come in.”

 “We researched the individual that the original blood for the sample came from and discovered that the alterations in the genetic coding were highly unique. This was a huge breakthrough, but there was no way that we could just pick someone off the sidewalk who had that coding. That’s where JP at R&R came in. He created an algorithm to search and analyse medical databases for potential matches.”

 “It’s a loose system,” Perry continued, “but it crops up a few names every now and then and we get to work. Only…well this time it sent us an entire page of names…or, actually it was one name repeated.”

 “Now it’s up to us to use your blood samples to create a stable cure that we can begin testing and hopefully create on a mass scale. Simple. Sort of.”

The room suddenly became a little hazy and Laura took some deep breaths. Only a slight bit of pressure on her part. She was only holding the fate of half the country’s, and half the world’s, population on her shoulders. Or in her veins.

 “But look,” LaFontaine grabbed her attention, “It’s not going to take much from you right now but a little blood and some monitoring. All you need to be concerned about is resting and trying not to get too bored. We have to head back to the labs because the plasma centrifuge will have finished its cycle soon, but Dr Karnstein is going to stop by to look at that head wound.”

 “Aren’t you both Doctor’s, can’t you do it?” Mention of her stirred conflicting thoughts of warmth and fear and Laura didn’t quite know what to accept as the accurate reaction just yet, and proximity had done little to aid her confusion. They both chuckled.

 “She can be a little intimidating at first, but give it time.”

 “She doesn’t get much better, but you begin to accept it…a little bit.”

Something flicker at the edge of Laura’s memory and niggled.

 “Dr Karstein said something when I first got here…when I was asleep. She said that Research and Recruitment were supposed to determine any viable next of kin…she said that it was to be fixed…”

_“By whatever means necessary.”_

Laura gulped as the phrase sank in and a chill swept over her.


	3. Phase Two

 With a loud crack, the sky fell. Through the deafening pummel of drops upon tired cars, her laughter rang clear. Laura curled beneath an umbrella, recoiling, yet the other woman flung her arms outwards with her face tilted to the heavens. Her clothes clung to her as she span through small lakes, jumping and kicking and chuckling as she went. Laura hadn’t seen that much happiness in so long. The weight that persistently pressed at her slid down her back in a warm wash and she gave over to the sheer joy of the moment. In the dim lighting of the lampposts, the woman’s face was cast in a dark shadow, but occasionally the light would catch her eye and reflect harshly back, like a car’s beams. She slowly stopped and allowed her composed form to return; her laughter slowly dying in her chest as her chest calmed from exertion. She walked toward Laura and ducked beneath the umbrella. So close, yet still shadowed. Impossibly so.

Something was missing, but so familiar.

* * *

  Rain clattered against the window and Laura blearily opened her eyes. The book that had lay discarded on her chest in her sleep slid to the floor with a thunk and she rolled her tongue around in her mouth to try and clear the stale taste. Laura lay and let the sound of the storm wash over her as she allowed herself to contemplate. She seemed to have all the time in the world to do so.

She missed her Father. A burden he had always been, but he was her burden, and she couldn’t blame him. There was guilt for a moment that she hadn’t pressed harder for access to a phone to contact him over the past week, and she wondered what was going through his panicked, paranoid mind at her disappearance, but there was a flash of relief followed by more guilt. In the last 23 years, he had seen her less of a daughter and more of a crutch, shouldn’t she allow herself some time to breath away from him? Perhaps it would have been better under different circumstances. Maybe the shade of a curved palm tree with the hot sand radiating through her thin towel and the ocean providing sweet reprieve from the blazing sun. Maybe not a car crash followed by non-mandatory captivity and medical tests. What had Silas Corp told him? Did he know what was going on? Did he even know that she was alive? If he didn’t, she couldn’t bear to think how it would have broken his heart twice over.

The memories before her Mother’s death grew more worn with each passing day, and she wondered how much of them were merely fictions of her Father’s tales and her own hopeful creations. She had been 5 when she passed, not nearly old enough to retain all of the parts of her that she wished. They had been married for a mere 8 years when she had been born, but childhood sweethearts for another 9 prior to that. Her Dad had had 22 years learning her. She had once been angry that he got so long and she so few, but realised that both would never have had enough. Laura had been too young to fully understand at first, and she would pester him with questions. It was the little things that she would ask, and she wondered how she had not realised the hurt they would have caused him with each enquiry. Her favourite colour, books, music, food, films, seasons. The first time, he told her to go down the hall and her Mother herself, then froze as it broke him all over again. He would crouch down to her, fix the collar of her top, and give a slow, melancholic half-smile that never fully reached his eyes.

Recollections and fictions and creations stitched together to form a partial image of a woman Laura barely remembered, but it was enough. Her accent was soft and well-spoken with flecks of southern family. It altered when she had spoken to them or when she got angry and her Dad would taunt her just to hear it. She walked with an air of elegance not from heritage, but from her ease and confidence and certainty that she knew where she was going and the only thing to do was follow.

Laura had been told that she had taken that trait.

She loved the theatre and grimy hole-in-the-wall dives and the sound that rain made as it hit the pavement and asking people about themselves until a passion spread across their face and their hands flung about with sheer excitement and love. Burgundy and The Great Gatsby and Johnny Cash and Thai food and The Wizard of Oz and Autumn. He would tell her all that he could and more but it wasn’t enough. They would go together, every first Sunday of the month, to visit her, but it soon faded to every second month, to every six, to her anniversary. As age came, wisdom and understanding slowly came with it and she saw the battle that raged in him; move on or remember her so vividly it’s like she had never been taken. Would she too now be a battle for him?

The battle had occurred not only within him, but showed itself when she stepped foot out the door. Every moment was one that held danger, and she pitied that he could no longer live with the verve that her Mother had instilled in him. It took its toll on their relationship, but duty and love won out against her need to be free of the shackles of obligation. He had provided for her her whole life; the least she could do was try to alleviate his paranoia. Respond to the frantic text messages assuring her safety and wellbeing, attend the self-defence lessons and take the many packs of bear-spray and mace that joined the many other stashed in the boot of her car. The relief to be away from it, even momentarily, washed over her once more, and she realised how far it had ground her down.

A shuffle and sniff came from the corner of the room, and she suddenly took note of the figure in the chair. One leg elegantly draped over the other and ever-present file lost to the small table beside her, Carmilla shifted again in her sleep before waking also. A look of brief confusion danced over her features before equanimity restored itself and she sat up. They locked eyes, and Laura couldn’t help herself any longer.

 “You said on the phone that my Dad should be taken care of by whatever means necessary. The tests have begun to give you answers, now give me some of mine.”

Carmilla stretch her limbs out with a slight crack and feline grace before rolling her head and her shoulders.

 “You’d think with the amount of money we pump into this hospital that they could afford some better chairs.”

 “ _Dr Karnstein_. I know that you may be used to having whoever is in this bed bend to your will and go along with this programme out of fear, but I swear to you I will stop my participation if you don’t tell me what is happening with my Dad.”

Carmilla stared, a look of wistful recognition dancing in her eyes.

 “Well.” She leant back and stretched her legs out before her, kicked off her black heels and crossing them at the ankle. “It seems that you’ve answered it yourself, no? He’s been taken care of.”

The ice ran through her veins once more and she thought of her Mother. A second grave to visit when she got out of here. _If_ she got out of here.

 “Oh God…you didn’t….” Tears began to well and that momentary relief she had previously felt turned to lead in her stomach. “You… _fuck_! You monster!” She began to scrabble at her cannula and fight her way out of bed, fury coursing and igniting. Hands suddenly grasped her wrists tightly and held them in front of her, tugging her into a body and she tried vainly to resist the vice-like grip. “Get _off_ of me! I don’t care who dies, I don’t care about any of this crap! How could you- how could you-”

The grip remained as her energy faltered and grief set in. Carmilla used her hold and tugged Laura into her body, their cheeks brushed as her lips found her ear.

 “ _Listen_. I will say this once and once only. There are ears everywhere.” Tears streamed down Laura’s cheeks and dripped onto the collar of Carmilla’s pressed white shirt. “He been _taken care of._ _Literally_. If I’d have wanted a final solution, then Kirsch isn’t the man I would have called. He’s safe, you need to trust me.”

Laura jerked. “ _Trust_ you? What in this entire situation tells me that I should _trust_ you?”

Her mouth moved closer and the words trickled across her ear softly with hot breath.

 “Well from where I’m standing, I saved your life from the car crash that the Dean formulated so that she could have access to a comatose body, effectively making you a human blood-bank. Right after that, I had your Father taken to safety, declared you deceased and had your medical records printed then digitally wiped by JP so that the Dean can’t access them, placed you in the care of the few trustworthy people in this company to ensure that you can heal so you’ll actually be of some use, and in the meantime given myself a few more sleepless nights and a potential target on my back.” Her voice hissed and curled and Laura had to steel herself.

 “You said that the Dean wouldn’t be happy if you let me slip away. So she knows that I’m here? How does deleting my medical history and declaring me dead help any of this?” They both became incredibly aware of their proximity as Laura turned her head and fixed Carmilla with a glare, and inch from the other and exhales mingling.

 “She knows that we have someone.” Carmilla’s voice lost its edge and her hold on Laura’s arms loosened. “Not you. We… _I_ need you for this cure. I lost someone, and I need to be cured so that that wasn’t a waste. I need her life to not have been wasted for my own to merely expire too.”

Carmilla let go and crossed her arms across herself. Not angry or defensive, but holding herself together.

 “I can’t watch another test subject succumb to her plan. Too many. It’s too important to sabotage, but we’ve set up measures to protect… just please let us take what we need and I assure you that we’ll keep you and your Father safe.”

The confident doctor had slipped away, and beneath the lab coat, make up and perfume, Laura saw the shadows permanently etched beneath her eyes, her sallow cheeks and the tendrils of black veins creeping out of her neckline. Laura reached tentatively towards them before averting and fixing her collar.

 “How long? How long can you keep this up, and how long do you need?”

Eyes flashed up to meet hers again, and hope enveloped them.

 “I don’t about the former, but LaFontaine says that she’s close, she’s just missing something. She said-” Her voice trailed away and broke their eye contact.

 “What do you need, Carmilla?”

* * *

 After 9 days, Laura finally left her room. The visual was the same from her bed; incandescent lighting and blank ceiling tiles, but outside it still was. The wheels of the gurney trundled her forward and Carmilla was at her side, file in hand and a hand tugging at her lapel. LaFontaine stood beside Danny who pushed her onwards, their red hair like beacons in the monochrome atmosphere, and they chatted mindlessly at her to alleviate their own nerves more so that Laura’s.

 “We’re going to be harvesting the bone marrow from your hip in three different locations, but you’re going to be anaesthetized throughout so by the time you wake up, we’ll have started our examinations and you’ll just need to worry about recovering.”

 “And there will be a little pain around the area of insertion, but that’s only short-term and will subside after a while.”

 “And realistically, 1-2 quarts is only 5% of your body’s marrow so it’s only a small donation.”

 “And you’ll only be out for an hour.”

 “And it could completely alter the formula.”

 “And-”

 “-Alright, I’ll take it from here, enough scaring the patient. Psycho Soc, go see how Beauchamp is doing and administer 12 micrograms transdermal fentanyl. Jot down the exact time and replace in 72 hours, and then prep Miss Hollis’ room for her recovery. LaFontaine, go inform the anaesthesiologist that we’ll be in shortly.” They all paused for a moment. “ _Now_.”

Laura watched them scatter and breathed a sigh of relief as Carmilla watched her curiously.

 “You gonna be alright, creampuff? You look a little pale.”

She didn’t reply, plucking at her blanket.

 “We’ll only go in when you tell me that you’re ready to.”

Carmilla moved from her side and sat at her feet, a hand resting on Laura’s shin. She looked down at the connection and felt her unease dwindle slightly. She wondered how Carmilla had gotten wrapped up in all of this besides her own ailment, that surely came from exposure at work. LaFontaine had said that they were working on supernatural concealment before this in what was surely a simpler time. Hiding a horn or two must have been almost fun in comparison, and now there was sickness and subterfuge. Laura suddenly missed reporting on cats in trees and county interstate plans.

 “I only have one full memory of my Mom. Completely untainted and whole. It was right before she passed away, and she took me out of kindergarten for the day. It was a week until my 6th birthday, and she’d been given the day off of work, and wanted to spend it with me so we went to the park. It was the first time I’d ever seen the carousel empty, and I begged her to go on it with me. I was a bit too bold though, and the moment it started moving, I wanted off. I didn’t know what I’d signed up for, and the horse was going up and down and the trees were blurry to my tiny eyes. But Mom… she held me tight to her front and under her breath she began to softly sing to me, and it was all alright. Sweet Baby James…that’s what she chose, and suddenly the world righted itself and we got off and went to the duck pond.” Laura looked up from the blanket. “I feel like I don’t know what I’m signing up for again but this time, there’s no one that knows the lyrics and can make the world right itself, so the trees are getting blurrier and the horse is moving faster and I don’t know if I can get off.”

A hand interlaced with hers, and she watched as Carmilla stroked her thumb along the inside of her forefinger. It seemed a subconscious motion, but upon glancing up, Carmilla’s gaze was trained on their union.

 “Here’s the thing, sweetie.” The smirk crept back onto her face. “I’ve always been a James Taylor fan.”

And that was it. Laura didn’t know how in less than two weeks, she could come to trust someone as implicitly as Carmilla, but she was in. All in. There was a little niggling feeling at the corner of her mind, a familiarity that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but she pushed it to the side and Carmilla let her go to open the file.

 “You’re going to be put under general anaesthesia, so nothing too drastic, but you’ll be a little dopey when you wake up. If all goes according to plan, I will see you roughly 80 minutes from now, back in your room where we can discuss the phase three.”

It sounded so simple.


	4. Games

 Their hands slipped between Perry’s, slow and delicious, and they squeezed, gaze still fixed over the boating lake. A gust trickled across the water, and she shifted closer to them. Couples were dotted about re-enacting their own Notebook moments in rickety rowing boats and LaF tugged her away and beneath an open arm. Runners split around them, huffing at their slow pace, and Perry let herself be led to the softball fields. The sand was speckled with sweat and sprinting steps, and a body flew into the home-plate in a flurry of dirt and dust with a triumphant cry before popping up with a cheer and a grin.

 “Investment banker uptown, 34. He married the woman he accidentally knocked up on a ‘team bonding’ night out who he started supporting out of obligation, but then developed real feelings for. They’re saving up for a place upstate on a couple acres that they can make their own.”

A ghost of a smile tugs at LaFontaine’s mouth, and they stared wistfully as a family on the bleachers erupt for him. Ice cream dripped down the little boy’s arm and a tiny pink tongue darts to try and catch it. When they had started this game, it had been mixed between mocking and warmth, but lately they had moved more towards the latter. Perry had thought of asking, but she didn’t think that LaF even realised. They perched on the bottom row and watched for a little longer, no obligation of discussion apart from a few fictions as bodies sprinted past them.

It reminded them of a time before.

“In high school, he wanted to be in the major league, but when his coach pushed him to focus on his studies, he found that he loved math, and he left it all behind. He thought one or the other, until an inter-office league showed him balance.”

LaFontaine chuckled.

 “You always go for that extra layer of depth.”

 “That’s because people are deep.” She turned to them with a smile, moving closer again until her stomach interrupted them. “C’mon, we’ll go back to that Korean Dumpling truck over on 4th. You can buy me a ‘thank you’ meal for dragging you away from that computer screen.”

 “There was no…okay there was a little dragging maybe…I don’t think that this deal is fair.”

Further onwards, the shadow of the tunnel cooled the air and the smooth bellow of a sax echoed to create an ensemble. Hat tipped low over anonymous sunglasses, it enveloped them and altered as they moved past. They emerged in Oz; all colour and vibrancies. Lush shades of emerald interlaced with rich fuchsia from the rhododendrons and the deep ochre in the trees and mountainous rocks grounded the overt shades. A welcome assault to the eyes. Children caterwauled as they wove between carefully lined trees. Pure, untainted joy fell from them in undiluted waves and coated everything around them. The relentless sun reflected off of the tall towers and they soaked in the clear skies and summer satisfaction.

With food in hand, they continued walking again and let the comfortable silence envelop them once more. Until.

 “I give it two more days of peace. We should make the most of it now.”

 “Peace?”

 “No unannounced visits from the Dean. Last time I had 5 minutes notice and not nearly enough time to clean my work area.” LaF snorted at her. “What kind of impression is that?”

They dug in further. Perry spoke the truth. With a promising subject, the Dean usually stopped by within the week, but they had taken measures to delay as much as possible. The knowledge of a positive subject wasn’t horrible news, and it would certainly get the woman off of their backs for a while, but Ms Morgan had a tendency to over-invest herself. The fatalities hadn’t all been down to the illness, but the Dean’s lack of…they didn’t want to say humanity, but it was appropriate. The last time, she had laden the subject of only 37.3% accuracy match to their criteria with endless procedures and no time to heal. The further her health had deteriorated, the less use she was to the programme, and the subject didn’t last long past ‘no longer viable’. The red stamp on the front of her file, and countless others, still haunted LaF. She daren’t think of her reaction to a 92.7%.

Perry took a quick look around them and seemed to chew over her choice of words.

 “So…do you think we’re going to be able to make a…good batch of cookies with that recipe?”

They stared at her.

 “Y’know. _Cookies_.”

“Cookies? We just ate, Per, I don’t think…oh… _oh!_ Well…it’s a slightly different recipe, but it looks promising. I’m hoping that we can get the first batch baked by tomorrow now that we have the right…type of sugar.”

The subjects before had been vital building blocks. Some had gone on their way, some regrettably hadn’t, but with each failure they had moved one step closer to success. They had tasted it with Carmilla, but she had demanded the formula to be completely scratched after they discussed the potential process of mass production. They wanted something that they could recreate without further expenditure of human life. It had taken too much of a toll already.

 “So by tomorrow you mean-”

 “It’s gonna be a long night.”

* * *

 

 Carmilla set down her cup and sat back, propping her feet up on the desk and reclining slightly in her seat. With a sigh, she rubbed the nape of her neck and shut her eyes. The last 9 days she had moved between LaFontaine’s lab, the patient’s rooms, her own desk and then her sofa come nightfall, with no glimpse of life outside of the hospital in between. The knot in her back was becoming permanent, and Carmilla was pretty sure that it was close to becoming no longer acceptable for her to ask Betty to run to her apartment or the dry cleaners one more time for a change of clothes.

The soft glow of the closing day drifted lazily through the window and she rolled her head to gaze out. 8 floors up, the tall buildings around had caught the orange glow and reflected it back at each other causing the city to set alight, but only a soft ember. Carmilla tried to think back to a time when she took the weekend off, or even a long lunch to go relax. She and LaFontaine had had a routine of tracking the nearest food truck before taking their spoils to the bench in front of the Science and Industry Museum. A coffee from Saul on the way back, with a wink and sometimes a free crueller on the sly, before heading back to the lab to examine the latest subject’s results and playing crazy scientist with LaF. At least they had Perry to do that with now. When she had gotten sick, she had been burrowed away from prying eyes, and potential corporate spies looking for the demise of the Silas Corp heir, by her mother and holed up in their office after the diagnosis. The pair had blamed the loss of the formula on corporate espionage from Corvae Enterprises. It unfortunately added only more fuel to the Dean’s fire and weight to her heavy hand but thankfully diverted her attention from the plan that harnessed the human population for the sustenance of the supernatural.

A voice cleared from her doorway, and she waved a hand to signal their entrance.

 “I’ve returned Hollis to her room, she’ll probably be out for another few hours yet.”

 “Will that be all?”

Danny scoffed and turned to leave, a question holding her back.

 “I want to know if this is going to end like last time.”

 “Is that a statement, or are you going to ask me something?”

Carmilla moved to sit upright, gathering papers to utilise her suddenly nervous hands and shuffling them.

 “SJ…we’re lucky that Kirsch doesn’t know exactly what went down with her, otherwise the Dean would have a revolt on her hands.”

 “What happened with Sarah Jane wasn’t our fault, Nurse Lawrence. She-”

 “-committed suicide because she couldn’t cope with the endless testing. She couldn’t deal with the needles that started in her arms, then quickly moved to her brain. She-”

 “-let us know that the answer isn’t in cerebral fluid and led to Perry isolating bone marrow as our main focus.”

Danny scoffed.

“How can you be so callous? That was a human _life_. A girl, not too much younger than the one currently in the same room, that we tested to death. The _pain_ she must have gone through.”

“If I wanted to rehash previous subjects, I would open my filing cabinet.” Carmilla snapped, her chair flying backwards as she stood. “Actually, how about a trip down memory lane?”

Snapping the chain from her neck, she tore open her filing cabinet and began to throw folders onto her desk.

“Fredericka Olsen, died after 2 weeks in our wing. 29.4% match.”

_Slam._

 “Gregory Wyatt, 3 weeks here. 31.2% match.”

_Slam._

 “Leon Kristoff, 2 weeks. 54.6%.”

_Slam._

 “Julian Montague, 1 week. 67.7%.”

_Slam._

 “Siobhan Connors, 1 and a half weeks. 30.9%”

_Slam._

 “Victor Marschke, 2 weeks. 48.1%.”

_Slam._

 “Jonathon,” _slam,_ “Shauna,” _slam,_ “Harriet,” _slam,_ “Walker,” _slam,_ “Zachary,” _slam._

The files blew papers across the room and they curled in the air and brushed at Danny’s legs.

 “And those are just the files of those we tested on, not even the ones that came into our care sick that. _We. Couldn’t. Help._ ” She spat it out as though their failure soured her tongue. “How _dare_ you walk in here and act as if I don’t care about every single subject or patient that gets wheeled into this wing. It isn’t _your_ neck on the line every time we lose someone and every time we _fail_.” Her hands clutched at the edge of the desk and tried vainly to find some resemblance of control of her desperation, anger and guilt.

Danny stepped forward and traced a finger of the red stamp adorning the front page of a folder that had fallen open in Carmilla’s rage.

[ **Deceased]**

 “The next time you want to walk in here like Xena Warrior Princess and save the damsel in distress,” Carmilla stalked around the table towards her, “try to wrap your tiny human brain around one small thing.” She squared her shoulders and glared up at her. “You are an employee and you are _disposable_ , in every sense of the word---now leave.”

The fire dwindled in Danny and she made her move to exit.

 “Ell was my patient too.”

Her voice was soft and Carmilla had to reassure herself that she had spoken, but the stab in her chest confirmed it. She scoffed, trying to cover it with snide condescension, but she knew that it sounded hollow and broken.

 “Ell wasn’t just a patient, Lawrence.”

They couldn’t look at each other.

“Well neither is Laura.”

Betty gave a light rap on the glass door with a tentative glance between the two. Danny slipped past her and she watched her go before awkwardly handing Carmilla a post-it note.

 “Why is it always a battle between you two, Carm? You’d think that after working together for so long that you’d have worked out a way to get along.”

Carmilla glanced to the direction Danny had taken.

 “That’s the issue with Nurse Lawrence, Bets. Everything is a battle and someone always needs to be protected. She hasn’t quite realised that the world is a little more complex than good will conquer evil.”

On vivid yellow, Betty had scrawled a time and location with the dreaded name above it all.

_Ms. Morgan._

* * *

 

 The office felt like a time capsule from her youth. Memories flickered behind her eyelids of endless reprimands as she had cowered in the mammoth, aged armchairs in front of the mahogany desk from a raised hand and a swift strike. The rich red leather had cracked beneath her tight hold, her nails cutting through the surface to the soft padding beneath. Small crescents remained still, and Carmilla traced a finger over them with an odd sense of nostalgia. Back then, she had feared for her safety, but in comparison, she would take the bruised cheek to her mother’s latest form of teaching. Everything always had a lesson behind it.

 “I’m only doing this for your own benefit, Carmilla. You must be the belle, not the beast.”

 “Next time, you’ll remember not to embarrass me in front of our guests.”

 “You’ll think twice about sneaking out to see that _girl_ next time.”

 “Don’t forget who funds your dalliances at university, Carmilla.”

Or, more recently.

 “You are the heir to this company, Carmilla. It does not bode well to be benevolent in a business such as this. Are you going to try to be disgustingly munificent and sabotage your own company again?”

Her hands curled into fists and she tried frantically to dispel the sound of crunching metal and piercing screams that sliced through her. The decanter of scotch stood out boldly from the line of crystal glassware and shades of spirits; a heavy pour and a few gulps before a second round of liquid courage and the memories lay in an alcohol soaked blanket. Carmilla thanked the Gods for the momentary peace that the single malt gave as it coated her tongue and roared fire down her throat.

 “That is the last of its kind; I would savour every drop, child.”

Carmilla would have described her mother to have floated to the desk if not for the strike of her heels. She looked down into the glass and swirled it, the light catching the amber.

 “At least the others spent extortionate amounts of money on it rather than seducing and swindling William Grant for a casket back when it was freshly sealed.”

Ms Morgan remained focused on her computer. Eyes locked, the pupils seemed to fill the iris, a pool of darkness with no ray of hope or warmth. Her cheek bones stood prominently on a face that looked to be carved of marble, with her hair pulled tightly upwards to make her sharp features only more prominent.

 “I see quality and future potential Carmilla. It’s what makes this company successful and it’s what made you who you are.” Carmilla strained to hear the compliment and hold onto it before the forthcoming ‘but’. “But even I make mistakes sometimes, I suppose.” Her eyes flicked to the side to scour her and burned.

She tried not to shift under the intense gaze and took a small sip and leant back, casually draping her right leg over her left knee, the glass swinging for the grip of two fingers either side of the rim. A bored sigh.

 “Another reason that this company is successful, child? I know everything. And I know that you’re hiding something. Don’t think that I’ve forgotten the incident with Subject #137-”

 “-and don’t think that I have forgotten about Patient #549.”

Their eyes meet in a heated duel. Carmilla had had to get Natalie out of there. She had arrived straight after Sarah Jane had been wheeled to the morgue; the 137th to cross their desks and the 137th to begin to submit to her mother’s programme before Carmilla had finally cracked. She had walked in, not sparing a glance to the security cameras, set up for monitoring both subject and staff, and stood before her. An injection into the IV, and she spoke lowly beneath her breath to her before returning to normal volume and moving to the other side of the bed.

 “It’s a small prick in the back of the neck, it’ll be done before you know it.”

A wheel down the hall to OR 3 and waiting clothes, cash and identification. They had all they needed from her, they all knew it but they all knew that the Dean wouldn’t allow them to stop. Extinguish every line of discovery was all well and good, until there are no discoveries to be made and you’re simply enacting your mother’s barbaric vendetta against humans.

The Dean moved from behind the desk, severing their battle but not diminishing the thick tension that smothered them.

“Patient #549 was unfortunate, but you must understand that the future of Silas Corp comes before a silly little tramp who most likely caught the disease venereally.” She now stood before the floor to ceiling windows that looked over the city. From where Carmilla sat, her mother looked like a foreign beast set to tear down skyscrapers and climb the highest one with planes circling and firing but this time, the beast would not fall. She downed the dregs of her scotch and slammed it onto the desk, a crack splintering the crystal and a dent in the rich mahogany surface. “I suppose that’s how _you_ got it.” She barked.

Carmilla steadied herself. One wrong move and her protection of Laura and their findings could crumble. She couldn’t rise to the bait, no matter how much she wanted to wrap her hands around the woman’s jugular. The black veins creeping up her chest began to ache slightly and she tried to calm down. The Dean knew how to play the game; 3 moves ahead with exact precision. That’s how she caught Natalie before she’d even left the city and that’s how she had made her death look like a mugging gone wrong. Not this time.

 “How is the current subject? Settling in, I take it?”

Carmilla nodded.

 “Why are her records not on the system, Carmilla?” She turned to her, the backlighting sending her face into shadow. “You’re not playing _games_ again are you?”

 “No, Mother, I’ve…I’ve learnt my lesson. Tenfold. That won’t happen again. We’ve removed the records so that Test Sample #34 doesn’t happen again.”

Lilita’s eyes narrowed and a sneer crept across her mouth, folding her face into disdain.

  “Good. That was a very… perspicacious move. I may actually be mildly impressed, Carmilla.” She hated the slight warmth that filled her at the notion of making her mother proud, and thanked the quash of any glimmer of maternal love, “but I’d be more impressed if you were actually successful for once. I want a report on my desk by noon tomorrow, or I’ll be forced to come down and examine the creature myself.”


	5. Morality

 Eli Hollis pressed a towel frantically at his hand to stem the flow of blood that had begun to drip down onto the laminate flooring. A crimson trail followed him as he rushed to the bathroom sink to retrieve a thicker towel and to run water through the cut. He hissed at the contact and worked quickly before drying it and binding it tightly. His name was called from the stairwell, but he moved towards the bedroom. An open duffel bag lay on the bed with its contents shoved haphazardly into it, half of them laying strewn over the side as Eli scuttled around to gather his last belongings. Singlehandedly, he wrangled everything in and tugged at the zip. A set of hands came from beside him and lifted it onto their shoulder and Eli began to follow him out. They were halfway down the stairs when he called for them to wait and sprinted back for the framed photo beneath his pillow. Two identical grins and warm eyes stared back at him and for a split second he forgot about the waiting SUV and the two burly men ushering him about, and his heart ached. His name was bellowed again, and he held it tight against his chest before heading out.

When they were on the road, the man beside him asked for his poorly bandaged hand and began to unfurl the towel. Eli tried to protest, but a sharp glare and it died in his throat.

 “I know that this is hard right now, Eli, but it’d be conducive to our plan if you didn’t hurt yourself every time we change location.”

 “I just-…I’m sorry-…you came up behind me-…I’m easily startled-…and I-...I just-…” He rambled. “I’m not used to-…”

 “Jesus Christ, man up! When Kirsch told me that we were protecting a decorated police officer, I was expecting a bit more backbone.”

 “ _Bro._ ” A voice came sharply from the driver’s seat.

 “Well it’s true-”

 “ _Will._ ”

They sat in silence as Will laid Eli’s forearm onto the centre console between them and pulled a bag momentarily onto his lap. He dug for a second, and pulled out some gauze, a spray, a few patches and a roll of pristine bandages. He calmly wiped away some of the excess blood that had begun to clot slightly and shook the canister before covering the wound. Eli clenched his spare hand into a tight fist around the cotton of his trouser leg and Will tore away the backing of a small patch. Eli pulled his hand back slightly in concern, but it was quickly tugged back and the patch laid in place.

 “It’s a clotting gel covering, stop worrying. It’ll heal the cut a lot quicker, and we can’t have you dripping blood everywhere. We’ll have to send a team to that house to remove the trail you left now.” He began to wrap the bandages tightly. “Don’t do it again.”

 “Maybe you should try coming into a room like a normal human rather than stealth mode?”

Will paused for a second.

 “I only run on stealth mode, Mr Hollis.”

* * *

 

 “Tell me again.”

Carmilla sighed and dropped into the visitor’s chair, throwing her head back and groaning loudly.

 “This is the fourth time I’ve explained this, cupcake.”

 “Well give it a fifth go, and drop the surly attitude this time.”

Her head snapped up and she scowled at Laura. They’d been at this for an hour now, and she wasn’t sure how many times she could explain before her will and sanity began to wane. Not to mention, her chest and the spider-web of blackened veins that decorated it had begun to ache tremendously.

 “I don’t know how to make it more simple than I have, creampuff. You have a genetic mutation that we identified in your blood stream after your crash that makes you highly resistant to this disease. All of our old research required a live donor, but that was because none of the donors were strong enough matches to be able to clone into a safe cure. Your bone marrow gave us the stem cells we needed to clone and hopefully mass-produce-”

 “So I’m a mutant then.”

Carmilla huffed.

 “Well I didn’t say that you-”

 “ _Wow_.” Laura whispered out dreamily, her eyes glassing over as her imagination whirred into life. “Does this mean I get super powers?”

She grinned over at the Doctor, and Carmilla dropped her head into her hands. If this was how she was going to understand it, then fine. She swore that sometimes it was like dealing with a child. A disturbing thought given the notions that had begun to creep into her mind when she was around the woman, but an accurate one nonetheless as she began to wax lyrical about what super-power she would have if she could choose. Carmilla stood up and sat at the foot of her bed.

 “-or super strength. I always have to get someone to open jars for me and now-”

 “So you’re saying you’d want wings so that you don’t have to get a lift to work, telepathy to find out if your boss really liked your article or if he was just lying to you, telekinesis to get things down from the top shelf and super-strength to open up jar lids.”

 “Well, yeah.”

Carmilla laughed and a blush crept up Laura’s neck, colouring her face as she ducked it down to hide behind her fringe. Before she could stop herself, Carmilla leant over and reached a hand out to tuck some hair behind Laura’s ear causing her to look up sharply.

 “You have a DCL7 Kappa 15 genetic mutation which means that you don’t have DCL7 cellular receptors.” She automatically raised her hands to try and gesticulate demonstrations as she spoke, her hands moving as she got lost in the description. “These cells receptors act as little doorways to the white blood cell and this disease used these doorways and white blood cells to replicate and infect. We took your bone marrow and applied blood infected with the disease, but there was no effect to your cells. Laf thinks that she can clone these cells, and maybe another harvest is needed, to hopefully create a viable test sample.”

She looked up and caught Laura staring at her in wonder. Laura flicked her eyes away and chuckled.

 “You get really into your descriptions, it’s cute.”

 “Oh-”

 “-so Laf mentioned that you took the last test sample but it just slowed it all down. Why not recreate that and give it out in the mean time before you find the cure?”

Carmilla glanced around, as if someone we listening in at the door, before shuffling closer up the bed. She took out a small torch and began to examine pupil dilation, an excuse to lean in and whisper almost into Laura’s mouth.

 “TS#34 relied on live donors and the Dean planned on basically harnessing humans to be cattle. One of our subjects, our donors, committed suicide because the Dean relentlessly tested her for supposed research, and then basically used her as a human blood-bag.” She reached a hand up to press against Laura’s neck and watched the hands on her watch tick past. “We couldn’t sit and watch her destroy people like that, so we tried to break out the next person…it didn’t work…” Her eyes lifted to meet Laura’s again, and she could see every fleck of gold in her rich hazel eyes, and remembered the first time she had seen them.

They had been brimming with tears and pain and had dimmed in life as the paramedics attached pads to her chest. Her body had bucked off of the asphalt only to fall limply back down. Another shock, and they rushed her onto a gurney and into a van as another EMT tended to the abrasions across her forearms and head.

 “ _Carm?_ ”

Shocked out of her thoughts, she looked at the woman who had been calling her.

 “I asked what the next step is…when can I leave?”

Images of Natalie’s mangled body sunk to the pit of her stomach and she felt the blood drain from her body. “Leave?”

 “Yeah, you…well you said that Laf could clone my cells, so that means that you won’t need me, right? That’s why you’re doing it all like this?”

Carmilla realised again how close they still were and that every micro-expression that danced across her face was laid out bare for Laura to see. There was nowhere to hide.

 “Next stage is the cloning, yes. Laf said that she’s been trying with other subjects, so the theory and research is all there, she just needs to apply it to your cells. It could take a day, it could take a week, it could take more.” At some point her voice had dropped below the previous whisper until Laura had to strain to hear, reading her lips to comprehend. Carmilla watched her eyes drop, and her mouth suddenly felt dry; her tongue swiped across her lips and she saw Laura’s pupils follow. “We’ve made bigger strides over the past two weeks than we have in months thanks to you, but-”

 “-but?”

Carmilla took a deep breath.

 “But the research and the lab-work isn’t the hard part. Getting you out of here is.”

* * *

 

Danny leant back in her chair and blew gently across the open top of her coffee; the wisps of steam swirling with her breath and sweeping upwards. She took a tender sip and recoiled, brushing her tongue over the roof of her mouth in an effort to sooth it. She replaced the lid and set it next to a stack of files before kicking her feet up onto the desk. The screen in front of her displayed the feed from Laura’s room, and she watched Carmilla slowly lean back and retreat to the door. She turned and said something, and then slipped out with a whip of her lab coat. Laura lay still, obviously contemplating what she had just been told, and then reached to press the button to lay the mechanical bed flat. Danny watched it all. She switched the feed over to Laf in the lab, and then quickly back when she saw them lean close to Perry and playfully flick at a button on her shirt before grabbing the phone receiver and dialling.

 “Hi, this is Nurse Lawrence calling for Ms. Belmonde…yes, I’ll hold.”

* * *

 

 The bed of lights stretching out into the darkness comforted her slightly. Carmilla watched them twinkle as the large grandfather clock behind her sounded loudly; the only sound in her apartment besides her breathing. They shifted and changed as the cars filtered through the streets and progressively more people turned in for the night and turned out their lights. A flow of movement and life. Fluidic and aeonian, much like the blood that ran through her veins was supposed to be.

 When she had returned from work, the sun long set and the moon casting a glow into the room, she had dropped her bag onto the pristine, white couch and felt the toll that the weight of responsibility and stress had taken on her. Tension ran through her shoulders and up her neck, and her lower lumbar ached with the sleepless nights in her office or Laura’s room. After a glass of blood, she slowly walked over to the window, shucking her heels before lethargically untucking her blouse and unzipping her tight black pencil skirt before removing them also in a trail behind her. They were so formal and tight; professional restraints that bound her both in Silas Corp and together as a person. They held her in one piece as she had felt herself begin to crumble under the pressure over the last two weeks. Without them now, she was torn between feeling relieved and unrestrained, and overwhelmingly lost and fragile. She reached a hand up to knead at the nape of her neck and groaned as she felt the tenderness there. In the reflection of the window, she could see how the black veins spread out from her chest in wicked tendrils and in a moment of masochism, she forced herself to remember and relive.

 Lilita had seen Ell as merely a pawn and Carmilla as a bishop in her malevolent game, forcing Carmilla to use the test sample that could have prevented her demise to save the more valuable chess-piece. She hoped that when they created the true cure, that the veins would remain. They were a lesson to her. Perhaps she was taking after Lilita after all.

 Before she could stop herself, she began to draw comparisons of Laura to Ell in her mind. Danny had been right, neither were just patients and Carmilla had felt herself change and soften around them. Or…not around them; _because_ of them. Vampires were meant to be predators. They were meant to see only prey and the steady thrum of blood that could be their next meal. Both had turned that on its head. She felt ready to drop to her knees and bare her neck, her soul, at any point if they even said the word. So vulnerable to their will. So tied to them. Carmilla couldn’t place her finger on what it was about each that had caused such a visceral reaction. She wondered if this was what true morality felt like; an incomprehensible devotion of allegiance to something that owed nothing to you and the willingness to sacrifice yourself, and all you have worked for, not from an expectation that you should do that, but from a personal drive to do so. She had that for Laura, just as she had Ell. In the aftermath of Ell’s death, it’s what had driven her to try to save Natalie and what haunted her when she thought of all the lives they had lost and failed. Was it true morality, or love, though? Or were they one in the same? Unfounded devotion, both. Carmilla felt herself get lost inside her head as the trains of thought interwove and tangled.

 “There are probably perverts on nearby balconies taking photos of the nearly naked woman standing at her open window in the middle of the night.”

Carmilla felt the hairs on her skin prickle and stand as a deep chuckle echoed behind her but she didn’t move an inch,

 “If Corvae come at us with blackmail and they’re images of you, don’t say I didn’t warn you, sis.”

Mattie circled the breakfast bar in the adjoining kitchen and poured herself a glass of o-neg. Stalking leisurely over to the coffee table, she set the glass down and draped herself over the arm chair. Carmilla was silhouetted by the moon and light pollution, and she seemed to have an aura. Her dark laced underwear was a sharp contrast against her ivory skin and she was suddenly very aware of how undressed she was and missed the confines of her office-wear. She turned to face Mattie, pressing her back against the cold glass.

 “You have some nerve, _sis_. It’s a stark display of your arrogance that you think you are welcome here after what you did.”

Her voice came out as calm as the heart of a storm.

 “Orders are orders, kitty. You know that mother had a valid reason for teaching you a lesson and it wasn’t like you were going to _die_ or anything.”

Carmilla laughed hollowly.

 “You really did leave every shred of your humanity back in your past life. Natalie died, Mattie. An innocent human.”

  “Innocent? I wouldn’t call running away innocent, darling. She needed to be hunted like the beast that she was and you needed to see what happens to those who don’t follow mother’s orders. You’d think after 335 years that you would have learnt to do so by now.” Mattie took a long sip from her drink, and dangled the glass precariously from her hand.

 “Why kill her though? Why not just punish me? _I’m_ the one who freed her.”

 “You’re needed, sweetie. Your team needs you to finish off this formula, you need to take over Silas Corp when it’s your time, and you need to _comply_ in order to make these things happen. The girl was simply a way to let you know that.”

Carmilla strode to her room and slipped into her robe and leant against the doorframe, looking over the living area.

 “And you should also know that there are literally billions of other girls that can be ways to let you know that if you feel like trying such a stunt again and their blood will be on your impertinent little hands.”

She looked down at her feet. The last she had seen Mattie, the woman had grabbed her by the throat and shoved her into the passenger seat of her Maserati before peeling away. They had barely driven for 15 minutes with Mattie furiously gripping the wheel and spieling about consequences of actions before she had realised what she had been forced into. Sure enough, she saw ahead of her a white sedan that she had arranged for Natalie to be picked up in after her escape as they wove in between honking cars. The white sedan had flipped and summersaulted off of the highway and down the embankment before it settled onto its roof. Natalie was pronounced dead on arrival, and the girl driving the car that the sedan had hit was taken into critical care. Carmilla and Mattie walked away with minor scratches that healed within a couple days and a clean rap sheet.

 “Little stunts like TS#34.”

Carmilla felt a chill sweep down her spine as she looked up cautiously. Mattie had moved from her seat and now stood in front of her, staring down with a venomous look in her eyes.

 “I know what you did, Carmilla. Lucky for you, Mother doesn’t about that though. Just like your little pet doesn’t know that your actions put her in hospital…for now.”

 “What do you want?” She barely recognised her own weak voice.

Mattie laughed and walked back to her seat.

 “What do you think I want, sis? _A cure_.” With a gulp, she finished her blood and slid the glass across the surface of the table.

Carmilla suddenly took note of how thin her sister looked, how hollow her eyes seemed, and the darkened marks around her wrists.

 “You’re sick too.”

She was fixed with a glare.

 “Not for long if you want Lilita and Laura to remain unaware.”

 


	6. Previously

**_5 years previously_ **

 A low hum of chatter blanketed their silence; warm and comfortable. Above it, Carmilla could hear her thumb rub softly at the corner of worn paper as she neared the end of the page in soft anticipation of turning. Her face flickered slightly as she read, reacting and delving deeper into the novel, sighing as the turn came and settled further into her seat. The leather squeaked slightly in protest as she sank into it, yet it moulded around her as best as it could. ‘A line of people led me to you,’ Carmilla thought, ‘and you will lead me to the next, but I can’t remember ever being this content.’ It may have come with age, but she felt no need to reach for more. More drama, more excitement. Carmilla had always needed more and was never happy with what she had. She was torn as to whether age had calmed her expectations, or allowed her to see true importance. No angst or spectacle. No thunder or lightning, as she had been conditioned to expect, but a thrum of electricity that was even more so. Ell felt like a life source, but had taught Carmilla that she didn’t need to thrive off of it, but from her own.

Ell had taught her a lot of things.

She had spent so many years being strong, that her armour had bonded with her skin and her scowl had been etched onto her face. Ell had laughed at her every time she had held her at arm’s length and countered every sarcastic remark. Carmilla hadn’t seen her coming.

They sat in the living room of her family home in the Hamptons, the French doors opening out onto a wide expanse of decking and the North Atlantic Ocean. It crawled its way up the shore as the tide rose to tickle at the feet of a sun lounger that had been dragged onto the sand. The all-encompassing heat of the summer had made way for a brisk morning chill as green became copper and thickly knit sweaters saw the light of day once more. Couples huddled for warmth as the passed, a dog usually sprinting out ahead of them, sometimes with a small child in tow. For the first time, Carmilla could see herself in them. Exposed skin turned pink under the harsh bite of a breeze whipping off of the open water and spindly fingers of frost had begun to creep across window panes. A fire roared beside them, crackling and cackling as the flames licked at the logs and warming them as the salty scent of the sea swept in once more. Carmilla shivered slightly and turned more towards the fireplace and washed her gaze over Ell.

Her face danced with expression as she absorbed the book, her tongue peeking out occasionally when the tale turned tense. Soft blonde waves swept over her shoulders and she looked tiny in an oversized white cable-knit. She held her lower lip gently between her teeth, turning the page again, and Carmilla’s heart swelled.

She had 330 years, and she had an eternity more, but she would trade them all for this life. They could buy a new place in the city, somewhere elegant and expensive and _theirs_ , high up and overlooking the sea of lights. Ell could continue her work as a trader on Wall Street and she could accept the position at New York Pres or Langone Med Centre. They could discuss getting married and having a family and Ell would make her propose first before surprising her with her own ring. They’d argue over wedding logistics before Carmilla would eventually bend to her will, and they would have a very simple affair in the Lighthouse at Chelsea Pier before a honeymoon exploring Eastern Europe. They could have a second home in the Hamptons and have so many moments like this one. Carmilla would have run had anyone suggested those to her in her past years, but for Ell….

The book was carefully laid onto the glass coffee table between them, and Ell moved to the French doors, raising her arms up to click her back as she went, allowing her sweater to rise slightly and a sliver of skin peak out. She shut them and turned to the sofa. Carmilla shifted into the back and patted the spot before her, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend as she wriggled into her, face buried into her shoulder. A lone hand slid under the hem of the sweater and across the small of Ell’s back like the sun emerging from the Atlantic horizon; luxurious and lazy. The velvet warmth of Carmilla’s dazed exhalation swept across the nape of her neck and the glow of the morning light brushed over them leisurely. Silence enveloped them and the steady tick of passing time harmonised with their synchronised breath. Ell felt fingers trace shapes onto her hip. Letter, then symbols. Spirals, then delicate sweeping loops.

 “How long do we have?”

Carmilla’s stomach sunk as she remembered why they had come here. Dreams of marriage and hopes of a life together crumbled. Her hand stilled on Ell’s hip and clutched it, as if for reassurance that they were together, and together they would get through this.

 “Half an hour probably, at most.”

The clock ticked, deafening.

 “This has been a long time coming, there’s only so long that Silas and Corvae can-”

 “I know…”

Ell brushed a soft kiss in the hollow at the base of her throat and sat up, grabbing the remote and clicking the TV into life. Carmilla sat for a moment, staring at the pristine white ceiling, before sitting up and joining her. She wrung her hands, elbows braced on her knees, and leant forward in her seat.

 “Or not even that long…”

 “-on ABC News 7. It’s 9 o’clock in the morning here in New York with breaking news on a new disease that could rival the smallpox epidemic of 1633. Experts are comparing the disease to the of HIV and AIDS in regards to symptoms and mortality rate, however they are not fully aware of the full extent of the danger in these early days. Few details are currently known on the methods of contagion; however, we have been informed that there are approximately 14,000 reported cases across America alone in the supernatural community. The first reported case came 8 months ago and has since spread even across seas to Hawaii and Alaska. Authorities in Canada have stated that they are not closing their borders until more is known on the level of infection, and both Canadian and American Centres for Disease Control are urging all supernatural beings to get tested at local clinics. We now go to Ashanti Rashi who is live with Cornelius Vordenburg-”

Neither knew what to say.

The ring of Carmilla’s mobile cut through.

 “Good morning, Mother. Yes, I’m watching now…” Her voice was soft, knowing what was about to come. Corvae had started it, and now they had to end it. “I’ll contact New York Pres and Langone this afternoon to turn them down and I’ll be in the office first thing tomorrow when I’m back in the city. Yes, Mother…yes, Mother…okay.”

Ell watched Carmilla slowly dip her head under the weight of this decision forced upon her. A few weeks prior, she had spoken so animatedly of leaving Silas and taking her research somewhere that she’d have the freedom to expand on her own merit. The work she and her new partner could do and the discoveries that they could make together. Then Carmilla had told her on Wednesday of the emails she had seen when she had gone in for a meeting with her mother to discuss her resignation. Too curious for her own good, the subject line ‘Saturday Morning: V-Day’ was too tempting a tid-bit for her to pass up on as the office lay quiet and the Dean in an over-running meeting. Silas had known of the disease and had discussed creating a team 6 months ago, but Carmilla had sectioned herself out of the discussions and made her lack of interest in participation clear. The email though…

The Dean’s contact in Corvae had found evidence of a plot to infect the supernatural community with a constructed super-virus to create a need for a developed cure. The company had created the former too well, however, and had only succeeded in creating failed attempts. Funding seemed wasted on the project, and so it was abandoned with all materials and subjects ordered to be destroyed for public safety. A subject had broken out of the facility before they could terminate him too, and not, 14,000 cases later, the cover up was finally unveiled and the epidemic that Corvae had planned to save the world from was real with no end in sight. The Dean had discovered it half a year prior and, self-preservation in mind, had aided the cover-up whilst research began. She wanted to be able to have the formula that Corvae had failed miserably at producing before shit hit the fan, but it was too late. It had hit, and it was everywhere.

The previous team had been good, but Lilita wasn’t so arrogant that she didn’t know exactly who should head up the research project and would provide the solution they needed. Carmilla thought of the 14,000 individuals infected and the yet discovered mortality rate and knew that turning this down wouldn’t be an option.

 “I have three conditions, mother. First, I keep LaFontaine. Second, if I’m going to lead this thing, then I want my own section in the facility. Third,” Carmilla turned her head and locked eyes with Ell. “My personal life stays out of this. You’re hiring me because I’m the best, not because I’m your daughter. I am your employee, and you’ll treat me as such.”

With a conclusive nod, she hung up and stared at the phone.

 “Why do I feel like the world just changed in the past 15 minutes?”

Ell traced her index finger down from the top of her spine, over dips and ridges of her vertebrae, to the loop of her jeans.

 “Because it did, Carm.”

Carmilla sat back and let Ell curl an arm around her shoulders as they watched the story develop.

 

* * *

 

**_Present Day_ **

 Laura glanced over to the still empty chair in her room and her stomach sunk further into the bed. She liked to consider herself a realistic person, all things considered, and so she knew that pining for her doctor was ridiculous and probably unfounded and something that a pre-pubescent teen would do, but she couldn’t help herself. Every morning for the past month, she had awoken to a lithe figure curled in the chair with her usually sleek, styled black hair slightly mussed from slumber and her mouth slightly ajar with puffs of relaxed breath. Every now and then, her nose would wrinkle and Carmilla would sniffle and shift in the seat to try and achieve some form of comfort before she would eventually wake to Laura pretending to sleep, her heart beat doing nothing to aid that portrayal. It had been about a fortnight since she had seen Carmilla’s eyes blearily blink and take in the morning sun beginning to trickle in through the blinds. It had been too long.

Carmilla still darted in to check up on her and had taken over a few of the routine examinations that Danny was supposed to perform, much to the Nurse’s chagrin, but her presence never lasted and she was always quick to head back to the labs. After the first week, Laura had pestered Danny enough whilst she was jotting down her potassium levels that she explained that a situation higher up the food chain had altered thing and Carmilla had taken on a more practical role working alongside LaFontaine. Fresh after completing her residency programme, Carmilla and LaF had worked together as partners for a few years, she had continued, after they had caught Silas Corp’s attention publishing a paper titled ‘Genetic Coding of the Supernatural: A Cure for Humanity?’ for their PhD. Carmilla wouldn’t allow the Dean to let them to be picked up by Corvae, and so, working together, they were soon at the top of the research field for the supernatural before V-Day. With success, the team expanded with Danny, once she had completed her nursing residency, and then Perry to replace Carmilla when she was appointed head of their research team.

As Nurse Lawrence reminisced, Laura thought back to how wistfully Carmilla had once described the early days when it was just her and LaFontaine. There had been a warm sorrow in her eyes as she described how she missed the practicality of research and was eventually forced to trade it for the tedious business side under her mother’s orders. Laura thought about studying journalism at school; the exciting prospect of playing her role in democracy and the fifth estate. She compared it to the drivel that she was being forced to write now, and she was empathetic to Carmilla. Sure, she wasn’t the heir to a multi-million-dollar company and the mere concept of that amount of pressure eluded her, but she had been forced to push aside her passion for her craft, and she couldn’t think of many things sadder than that.

She heard a faint noise and it pulled her out of her reverie.

 “Sorry, screenshotting a message from a friend.” Danny smiled softly and walked to the door before hesitating and turning back. “From what I’ve heard, this will all be over soon, Hollis. It won’t be long now.”

Laura found little solace in the promise.

She thought back to her plan with Carmilla for after this was all done and picked up the discarded book from her table. Shakespeare had been of little interest when she had dabbled in Literature as a minor, but there had always been an underlying sense of familiarity in the pages. The web of intrigue and schemes. Or maybe the familiarity was from her journalistic dreams of discovering plotting, conspiracy and subterfuge.

 “Well, well, well. You must be the miracle subject that has my daughter back in the labs.”

Laura’s head snapped up to a familiar accent and an equally familiar set of pitch black eyes. Sharp cheek bones that cut just as harshly as the unmistakable purse of her lips. She didn’t need the introduction; the lineage was startlingly clear. Laura’s stomach dropped as a wave of déjà vu hit her as whilst the Dean wore no lab coat, she, like her daughter, favoured a sleek, black skirt suit with an ivory shirt and heels that all looked more expensive than her entire wardrobe. Her long manicured nails looked like they were dripping with fresh blood that matched the rich red of her lips and Laura prayed that the bed would envelop her.

The Dean looked her over and stalked around the bed. She reached out and trailed the sharp nail of her forefinger under the curve of her jaw and tilted her chin upwards, as if to examine her fully. She stared for what seemed like forever, tilting her head with curiosity in an almost puppy-like manner before eventually dropping her hand, her lips transforming into a terrifying sneer.

 “How ironic it is that the mortals are saving the immortals. Usually we’re cleaning up your messes, and now our fate lies in your species’ grubby little hands.” Laura balked at her obvious disgust. “They kept you here for quite a while now…where’s your file?”

She stepped even closer, until her thigh was pressed against the side of the bed and Laura had to tilt her head upwards to look at her stand over her.

 “Hollis, I forgot to check your- oh.”

Danny froze in the doorway and Laura praised whatever God there was for the interruption.

 “Nurse Lawrence, is that the subject’s file?”

And then Laura damned Him.

Ms Morgan held a hand out and snapped her fingers, ordering Danny to comply. Reluctantly, with a thick gulp, she passed the thick folder over to be snatched away and thumbed through. Hums and murmurs followed as the Dean flicked through and examined. The monitor beside her began to speed in the frequency of beeps and she felt a cold sweat form on her brow. With a derisive huff, she snapped the folder shut.

 “Nurse, why on _earth_ has this subject been here for so long with only a 15.7% match to the ideal genome?”

Danny and Laura exchanged a look of mild shock before turning back to the Dean.

 “Well, Mr Morgan, the subject…was too unwell to leave the facility. We didn’t know if the testing had caused it and wanted to avoid any possible legal action that could be taken against us for discharging her in such a poor condition.”

Lolita took a look at the rapid heartbeat on the monitor and took in Laura’s pale complexion.

 “I want her gone by the end of the week. This bed could be far better filled.”

With a final demeaning sneer, she stalked away and the pair let out a collective breath. The hurricane had cleared, and stillness lay in its wake. After a moment, Danny curiously opened and scanned through the pages. Sure enough, the initial testing document stated a difference of 77% to her actual match and every page afterwards corroborated the data. Carefully constructed, and all signed ‘Carmilla Karnstein’ at the bottom.

 “She knew this was coming…” Danny muttered under her breath. “She always knows…”

 “Pardon?” She looked up to Laura’s concerned gaze and straightened up.

 “I said that Carmilla must have known that her mother would pay a visit. She seems to have a sixth sense about things…about schemes and the sort. Always.” She stared out of the window into the miserable cloudy sky and her brow furrowed.

 “Danny?”

 “Yes! Sorry, got lost in my train of thought. I’m gonna go give LaF and Per the heads up that Dracula has descended so that Per can give the lab a once over. I’ll catch you later, Hollis.”

 “Yeah…later…” Laura watched her leave and suddenly the loneliness of her room felt perilous with Ms Morgan roaming the halls.

* * *

 


End file.
